THE Forty 4-4-0s Club has been set up to help finance the casting of the four 6ft 8½in driving wheels for No. 3840 County of Montgomery.
We already have a head start in the manufacture of the coupled wheels thanks to the Great Western Society, which has released the wooden wheel pattern used to cast the wheels for ‘Saint’ 4-6-0 No. 2999 Lady of Legend; these being identical to those of the Churchward ‘Counties’.
Each wheel will be made of high quality cast steel and cost £10,000 each to manufacture. To meet these costs the CCT invites you to join its Forty 4-4-0s Club, which allows supporters to ‘adopt’ one (or more) of the original 40 ‘County’ 4-4-0s, which were all named after British and Irish counties with which the GWR had connections, albeit obscure connections in some cases.
Membership of the Forty 4-4-0s Club is set at £1,000 (payable in one lump sum or in eight payments of £125 by standing order), and comes with a string of incentives including:
- An invitation to the launch of County of Montgomery
- A seat on the locomotive’s first train
- A special certificate acknowledging the ‘County’ being adopted
- A framed and mounted photograph of the ‘County’ being adopted *
- A mounted print of No. 3840 by artist Jonathan Clay
- Your name on Roll of Honour
- Life membership of the CCT
* Subject to availability. Some of the ‘Counties’ appeared to be camera shy, and to date no images of Nos. 3808 County Limerick and 3839 County of Pembroke have been located. In these circumstances the photograph will be substituted. NOTE: Each locomotive may only be adopted once!
Additionally, the names of all Forty 4-4-0s Club members will have their names put into a ballot; the winner receiving a wooden replica of the nameplate of the ‘County’ of their choice. If all 40 locomotives are adopted, the CCT will have reached its £40,000 target.
The full list of ‘Counties’ available for adoption is as follows:
3800 County of Middlesex
3801 County Carlow
3802 County Clare
3803 County Cork
3804 County Dublin
3805 County Kerry
3806 County Kildare
3807 County Kilkenny
3808 County Limerick
3809 County Wexford
3810 County Wicklow
3811 County of Bucks
3812 County of Cardigan
3813 County of Carmarthen
3814 County of Chester
3815 County of Hants
3816 County of Leicester
3817 County of Monmouth
3818 County of Radnor
3819 County of Salop – Adopted by D Tunbridge
3820 County of Worcester – Adopted by A Turner
3821 County of Bedford
3822 County of Brecon
3823 County of Carnarvon
3824 County of Cornwall
3825 County of Denbigh
3826 County of Flint – Adopted by P R Williams
3827 County of Gloucester
3828 County of Hereford
3829 County of Merioneth
3830 County of Oxford
3831 County of Berks
3832 County of Wilts
3833 County of Dorset
3834 County of Somerset
3835 County of Devon
3836 County of Warwick
3837 County of Stafford
3838 County of Glamorgan
3839 County of Pembroke
A Forty 4-4-0s Club membership form is available here.